Originally Posted by
shooter74743
Sounds like D2 may be your candidate, tough as nails and good steel for knives...pretty stain resistant too. I've been wanting to mess around iwth it some with the knives I make. Only problem is that most knives out of D2 are fixed blades, but google is your friend. Thickness and grind is what you will have to pay attention to if you are going to use it hard, I would recommend a flat grind as it's about as tough a grind as you can get.
Lastly, this is going to end up a opinion thing as all the steels listed, if properly heat treated and tempered, will serve you very well. That's the heart and soul of the steel, the heat treat and temper. I believe this was mentioned above, but had to bring it up again as it's the key to any knife. Then you have to worry about ergonomics for you as well as the shape/grind of the blade.
Did I happen to mention the most important part of the knife is the heat treat/temper?